4. What core principles guide interim maintenance for children?

4. What core principles guide interim maintenance for children? 

The governing criterion for interim maintenance is reasonableness, which is treated as synonymous with fairness. In exercising its discretion, the court must make the best interest of the child the primary consideration. This involves ensuring the child is provided with a home and is properly maintained and educated. 

At the interim stage, the court is concerned with the child’s immediate and reasonable requirements. Interim maintenance is designed to meet the child’s recurring costs of living pending final determination. It is not intended to operate as a form of pre-trial capital re-balancing between the parties. Even where one or both parties possess considerable wealth, the court will not, at the interim stage and prior to a full trial, redistribute assets or prejudge the final division of property by means of an interim maintenance order. 

In assessing what is reasonable, the court takes into account the standard of living enjoyed by the child before the breakdown of the marriage. For children of the family, the pre-separation family lifestyle provides a useful or “ready yardstick” for identifying the child’s reasonable needs. However, the court does not mechanically assume that children must be maintained at exactly the same standard of living as before; nor does it presume that the family has always lived a lavish lifestyle simply because the parents are wealthy. Each case must still be assessed on its own merits. 

The court will then balance those needs against the financial resources of the paying parent. This involves looking at the reality of the situation, rather than simply accepting a party’s asserted financial position at face value. The court may consider not only income and assets formally held by the payer but also resources reasonably available to that party from third parties, including grandparents or the extended family. However, such third-party resources must be those that are in fact reasonably obtainable, rather than purely speculative.